Nadezhda (cockroach)
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Nadezhda (, Hope) was a
cockroach Cockroaches (or roaches) are insects belonging to the Order (biology), order Blattodea (Blattaria). About 30 cockroach species out of 4,600 are associated with human habitats. Some species are well-known Pest (organism), pests. Modern cockro ...
that was sent into space during the Foton-M 3 bio-satellite flight between September 14 and 26, 2007 by
Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
n scientists. Scientists monitoring the mission from
Voronezh Voronezh ( ; , ) is a city and the administrative centre of Voronezh Oblast in southwestern Russia straddling the Voronezh River, located from where it flows into the Don River. The city sits on the Southeastern Railway, which connects wes ...
announced that Nadezhda had successfully produced 33 offspring on Earth. While it was reported that Nadezhda's offspring were the first earthlings to be conceived in
microgravity Weightlessness is the complete or near-complete absence of the sensation of weight, i.e., zero apparent weight. It is also termed zero g-force, or zero-g (named after the g-force) or, incorrectly, zero gravity. Weight is a measurement of the fo ...
, Japanese rice fish successfully conceived and produced offspring in microgravity as part of the IML-2 experiment aboard STS-65 in 1994. Nadezhda and the rest of the insects were traveling inside a sealed special container, and a video-camera was filming the whole process. What was considered unnatural for the newborn cockroaches was that their
carapace A carapace is a dorsal (upper) section of the exoskeleton or shell in a number of animal groups, including arthropods, such as crustaceans and arachnids, as well as vertebrates, such as turtles and tortoises. In turtles and tortoises, the unde ...
had darkened in colour much earlier, in comparison with natural-condition cockroaches who develop that darker tone later in their life cycle. But the rest of the conditions and capacities of the cockroaches remained normal. Later it was reported that Nadezhda's grandchildren, born to one of the space-born insects, had given birth on Earth to normal cockroaches, with a life cycle and development similar to that of any other cockroach.


See also

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Animals in space Animals in space originally served to test the survivability of spaceflight, before human spaceflights were attempted. Later, many species were flown to investigate various biological processes and the effects microgravity and space flight m ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nadezhda (cockroach) Animals in space Individual cockroaches